[central_va]

So, in the end, slavery was not just about a few "greedy people", but rather about the entire economy and culture -- the way of life -- of nearly half of United States settled territory.

You are seriously distorting antebellum south. The majority of people in the south owned no slaves, worked their own farms, were carpenters tradesmen and lived lives that neither benefited from or were harmed by the "peculiar institution".

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "You are seriously distorting antebellum south.
The majority of people in the south owned no slaves, worked their own farms, were carpenters tradesmen and lived lives that neither benefited from or were harmed by the 'peculiar institution'. "

Sorry, FRiend, but it is you who may be seriously mis-informed.
Data from the 1860 census showing percentages of households owning slaves, by state, can be found here.

What it says is that, roughly speaking, slave-holders lived in

1. nearly half of household in the Deep South (i.e., SC, Mississippi),
2. about a quarter in the Upper South (i.e., Virginia & Tennessee) and
3. around 10% in Border States (i.e., Maryland and Kentucky).

As for who did (or did not) benefit from slavery, many posters have pointed out: the entire nation benefited from slave-holders' growing prosperity in exporting profitable cash-crops like cotton and tobacco.

And that alone well explains why the Deep South was eager to secede in 1860, while the Upper South was reluctant, refused at first to secede, and Border States never voted to secede, even after the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.

So the formula here is simple -- the deeper south and higher percentage of slave-owning families in a state: the more eager they were to secede and declare war on the United States.